: Re: Why not God as our subject? Certainly there are many Science Fiction writers who touch upon the subject of beings supreme to Man...but always Man is central in writing.

The lack of involvement of a God in Science Fiction (as opposed to, say, epic poetry) is really a bit of historical trivia--God was simply a less popular character in the times in which Science Fiction was written.

This phenomenon isn't unique to Science Fiction--not many very popular works have been written in the past few centuries with a benevolent, omniscient, omnipotent viewpoint because it's too difficult to try to resolve the Epicurean Paradox[1] while keeping the usually quite devout masses happy because, surprise! The Epicurean Paradox is paradoxical!

The only answers I've seen continue to crop up are the idea of "optimism", that is, that this is the best God could do (Paradise Lost, Theodicy), but that idea was roundly thrashed by Voltaire, OR that God continues to allow this evil so that humanity may (depending on who you talk to) prove it's worth, build character, etc. in so many words: become stronger (kind of like how working out at the gym hurts, but it saves you future pain).

[1] "If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why is their evil? If he is not omnipotent, then he must be weak (and therefore not godly). If he is not omniscient, then he must be ignorant (and therefore not godly). If he is neither, why call him God? (for he must be not godly)

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: Re: Why not God as our subject? Certainly there are many Science Fiction writers who touch upon the subject of beings supreme to Man...but always Man is central in writing.

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: In a short story, how long is "too long"? I understand this can and probably will be shut down for many reasons, but how long is too long for a short story? I want to write a short story,

: When to expose a hidden romance between two very snappy characters? OK, so I have two characters, and they are very snappy to each other (as they are to everyone) and yet I'm planning a

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